Linearity

October was a rough month for most of my friends in law and medical school. Each suffered a unique case of system overload, but the frantic messages promising communication later and complaints of 16 hour days. Still, they were all glad to have satisfied another requirement to advance in their rather linear degree paths.

I first heard the word “linear” in my 7th grade Pre-Algebra class. We were trying to figure out solutions to equations of the form “y=mx+b.” Never a big fan of math, I was surprised to see the concept again in my English courses as a way to describe narrative arcs. While my own life seems to be a random set of méandres (twists and turns), the end result is actually quite linear.

When I first entered college, I was set on attending veterinary school immediately after undergraduate and stepping onto the fast track to personal and financial success. Then I took Mammalian Physiology. Lots of interesting information, much of which got drowned out due to sheer volume. That was the same semester that I decided to take Honors Organic Chemistry II, Contemporary African Art, Introduction to French Literature and a seminar about elephants. With the clarity of time, I now see that I had made my college major choice into une crise d'identité and had decided to throw myself onto everything and see which held me afloat.

After jumping off the pre-veterinary track, I decided to keep my position as an undergraduate teaching assistant in biology and added another job as a peer leader. Teaching was something new and different that gave me a) authority and b) instant feedback. It’s a lot easier to read a 19 year old’s glazed over eyes of boredom than a calm professional’s visage impassible as she hands back your latest paper. Those gigs lead to my year in France as an English teaching assistant, which helped me to prepare for my eventual job in the Peace Corps which combines language/cultural expertise with technical knowledge.

The sense of this evolution made sense to me while talking to friends and family who had suffered through my pre-test freakouts. Explaining it to most other people isn’t that hard, as they either see the scribbled lines of coherence or decide that I’m just out of my mind. One friend’s mother still believes that I’m a great con artist convincing government entities to shell out vast amounts of cash for exotic trips (coupable!). Et pourtant (and yet), some acquaintances and family members keep asking me, “What about your career? When are you going to figure out what to do with your life?”

For awhile, I kept a hazy list of graduate programs running on my laptop and was fond of discourir de my grand future plans. Thankfully, cultural adjustment doesn’t leave a lot of spare processing energy for non-immediate challenges so training was a break from this worry. Since returning to the US, I’ve had more time to think as I do my physical therapy stretches and procrastinate on finishing short stories. The list expanded in depth and breadth as I found more scholars whose “intellectual communities” I wanted to belong to. I was chatting with one friend who’s thriving in the medical school marathon about future anxieties. She reminded me that I’ve already made steps on the career path and that I’ll have graduate options available when and if I need them.

Having grown up in the “gotta have more 90s,” I was used to making plans of success and modest fame far in advance. I have been known to make extensive spreadsheets detailing future courses, working hours and career plans. So the list is still there, but I’m not freaking out about it anymore. I’ll figure something out, even if I don’t feel called as if by a siren song streaming through a sea shell. In keeping up with other PCV’s blogs, I’m surprised at the range of projects my colleagues are undertaking and how they’re adjusting to radically different expectations. Mieux vaux plier que rompre (better to bend than to break)!